Syria under Hafez al-Assad became the region’s most watertight police state. Photograph: EPA

For the 30 years that Bashar al-Assad's father, Hafez, ruled Syria, he kept potential enemies at bay by creating divisions among the people who were in a position to challenge him.

The late dictator was fastidious about never letting any individual or group become powerful enough to challenge his authority. The best way to do that was to set up multiple reporting lines. All of the people who had his ear enjoyed the patronage of the godfather and competed for his attention. Dissenters, meanwhile, had good reason to stay quiet, knowing that the centre of power would soon learn of their subversion.

Syria under Hafez al-Assad became the region's most watertight police state, with a mix of civilian and military agencies and spy headquarters. The mukhabarat, as spy bodies are known in the Arab world, became pervasive and omnipotent. It has continued under the 12-year rule of his son, and has so far played a significant role in safeguarding his regime. Bashar al-Assad's use of a network of selected advisers – among them the inner circle who are party to the hidden email accounts – is a tactic straight from his father's playbook.

There is no doubt that Syria's generals and intelligence chiefs, most of whom hail from the Assads' clan, are front and centre at regular briefings offering battlefield summaries and clandestine assessments. However, Bashar al-Assad appears to understand well the value of a separate line. "It keeps the others guessing," said one regional politician familiar with the thinking behind the use of a private network. "The others in the circle probably knew it existed and all that did is keep them on their guard. It probably had the effect of making them scrupulous about their conduct and their facts."

Notable in the email correspondence is the absence of communications with key old-guard advisers such as Buthaina Shaaban, who has been very close to both presidents, or Jihad Makdiss, who was called back to Damascus from the Syrian embassy in London to run the information section at the ministry of foreign affairs. Both appear to still enjoy the president's confidence but clearly have a different route to his office.

The distinct lines of reporting are not the only trait that Bashar al-Assad appears to have learned from his father. Another is the art of negotiation without compromise. Every delegation that has visited Damascus since the uprising began a year ago has been officially received and politely sent away. The United Nations special representative for Syria, Kofi Annan, left on Sunday after two days of talks that failed to broker a ceasefire or moves towards one.

A former president of Lebanon who spent nearly five years dealing with Hafez al-Assad said he had little success in winning concessions. "I had 18 meetings with Hafez al-Assad when I was president and never won a single concession from him," he said. "He would talk, stall, never commit and never deliver."

Asked when he had come to the conclusion that the way of doing business had not changed when Bashar al-Assad became leader, the former president said: "From the beginning. He surrounded himself with the same people. He does business the same way."